Day 9 (Goodbye, Guizhou/Travel to Guangdong)

Our last day in Guizhou was bittersweet.  I am glad to be moving on to Flora Lin's province to meet her and one step closer to home!  I am enjoying my time here, but I am ready to get back to my home and all that familiar, including being able to drink the water out of tap whenever I want to.  It's something I'll never take for granted again!

We had some good progress on the Sam and Charlotte bonding today!  She turned on the TV and since everything was packed up I really didn't care, so she and Sam found the Chinese version of WIPEOUT and had a great time laughing together watching it!  She even crossed her little legs just like Sam!

Other happy things that happened today were lots and lots of fun time in the hallway!  I liked this hotel much more than the hotel in Beijing.  The breakfast took some figuring out as far as what I felt like eating, but it was clean (NOT the floors, though.  Wear the hotel slippers and bring an old flat sheet for children to play on the floor.) , everyone was friendly and no one fussed about all of the racket the children made playing in the hall, which they needed to do.  One thing I would change if I could would be to have access to some sort of playground somewhere.  There just isn't really a place for children to run and play.

Other happies:  Charlotte can hold a crayon perfectly and LOVES LOVES LOVES noodles!  And in the TMI department, she FINALLY pooped!  She definitely feels better!  She is also getting sillier and sassier as the days go by! : )

 

Guizhou is a beautiful place.  Many of the places that we visited and the things we saw are what I pictured seeing in CHina.  THough GUiyang is a modern city, there is still a lot of the old, beautiful CHina in it.  I love the round mountains and the patchwork gardens tucked in little spaces here and there, as well as the workers with their baskets on their backs.

 I felt some sadness in taking C away from her home today.  She doesn't fully grasp what is happeneing I know, but she knew something was happening.  When she saw all of the suitcases being loaded onto the bus and Sam outside, she started to get pretty upset.  Once we were on the bus with everyone (I am so thankful for our big, traveling family!) she settled down and went to sleep, as it was pretty close to her nap time.

Getting everything set in the airport to leave took a long time for what reasons, I do not know, but took over 30 minutes (with some restless children and some tired mommies and daddies).  If you are traveling in country, check to see what each airport's rules are about batteries/chargers.  This province is the opposite of Beijing and our guide told us it has changed before.  Some of us had to repack our bags in the middle of the airport.

Charlotte loves to ride escalators and had fun walking with us through the airport, wearing her backpack.  She did really well going through security (which didn't seem nearly as frightening as Beijing) and the security workers loved her!  When I went through, she couldn't go with me and ran back to Sam.  THat was a happy Papa moment for him!

    I think at times she thought she might get to see her foster family because we were packing up and we got the backpack ready that they gave her.  When we got to our gate we had a two hour wait to board.  Charlotte swatted at me and I held her hands and calmly told her "no."  She had a bigger meltdown than she had had during Forever Family Day.  I had to hold her close, with her laying down across my lap.  She kicked and she screamed loudly without stopping for at least ten minutes or maybe more.  I really don't know because I was so focused on her.  Sam was right beside us.  We let her scream and talked softly to her.  It wasn't really a sad scream.  She was mad and part of me really believes that she knew that we were forever and everything was changing.  No more foster family.  Her smart 2.5 year old self really had no way to express this other than a meltdown.  Truthfully, I had been waiting for a big blowup to come and I was glad I was able to be able to be there fully to focus on it.  Once she stopped screaming and kicking and crying I sat her up and told her I loved her and was able to rub her back, give her some kisses, stroke her hair and cheeks.  She really is a brave, good little girl and is easy to love.  After a few minutes of holding time and some pretzel sticks, she was back to her sunny self and played with us and the other children.  She is great about communicating what she wants without words.  She asked me in her own way if she could play with the big girls, H and O.  She is SO happy when she plays with them!

When it was time to board she did well, but we had to line up, go outside through a door, walk down a little ways and take an overcrowed bus to the plane area, climb up some stairs to the walkway (all with our 3 carryons, backpacks and a two year old) to board the plane.  Charlotte did great in her own little seat and mostly read a board book that the Parks family had given us.  She held my hand during take off and didn't really have an issue with any of it.  She's a super traveler!  Did I mention she completely missed her nap?!  She did fall asleep during the last 15 - 20 minutes of the flight and slept through a rough landing, a noisy deplaning (where it seemed EVERYONE was staring at us, talking about us and looking at C!  I actually used one of the printed cards we had to explain who we are and why we have an Asian child to give to a man that just wouldn't STOP looking!!!), but she didn't sleep through me wacking her head on the overhead bin.  Mommy fail.  The sippy cup came to the rescue (thank you a million times, R family!) again and we made it through the airport and baggage claim without incident, borded a bus after walking to it and drove to the hotel (C had fallen back asleep by now, as it was bedtime for her), which is very nice.  We got C ready for bed, who went down without a fuss and we followed suit.  All in all, it was a very successful day!

Things I am glad I Brought:

* sanitizing wipes

* snacks for the airport

* something NEW and insteresting for the plane ride (board book)

* baby carrier

* chocolate for me, post meltdown!

* off brand gerber puffs

* card from our agency saying why we are in China and what we are doing

* our big travel family (we are no longer a travel group, but a travel family!)

* pull up panties for C - she is very well potty trained, but this was a big day and I never had to worry about wetting panties, which I think she must have at some point

Things I Wished I Had:

* less stuff (I carried C, her backpack, my FULL backpack, purse and carry on luggage, C's dolly and sippy)  the flight was short and I didn't need it all

* something else for C to drink

* coffee - I hadn't been drinking it here and I just ran out of steam!

Prayers Answered and Requests:

* C traveled great, other than the understandable meltdown

* All of our luggage and the other families made it there fine

* C is opening up to Sam

* C is signing a little and trying to speak some English - she is SMART

* Pray - C will eat more fruits and veggies, right now all she will eat is noodles, eggs, rice, some bread, pretzels, vitamins (yay!), pineapple juice and orange tang

* Pray for Flora Lin and C - big changes ahead here on Monday

* Pray for us, big changes and our best parenting skills will need to be ready!